The Black Spire Pact is a slipcased pair of PvP adventure books where one player is a mortal sorcerer, the other a demon lord. PvP Gamebooks use a streamlined system built on and fully compatible with Old-School Essentials.
Two players go head-to-head in this epic duelling set of gamebooks. One takes the role of Marax, an aspiring demon lord, Duke of Astrology, and protector of the Tenth Crown of Chaos. The other, Voth, a power-mad sorcerer questing for immortality before his borrowed time runs out! Which one will hold their head high among the seventh church of hell, and which will meet their tragic fate? Grab a friend and go head-to-head to find out!
This is the simplest campaign we have run yet. Just The Black Spire Pact, two A5-sized paperback books in a full color cardstock slipcase. Each book comes in at approximately 150 pages—with one book for you, and one for your mortal enemy! The only choice you have to make is whether you want a print copy or only the digital files.
Bonus Content
We aren't just making the gamebooks; all backers will receive a PDF version of The Black Spire Pact adventure module for use in a traditional OSE game!
What are Player versus Player Adventure Gamebooks?
Think competitive Choose Your Own Adventure books, but with dice. If you are familiar with classic adventure gamebooks such as Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf, then imagine that style of play, but with two people trying to kill each other (or at least trying to complete their objectives first).
Our new PvP Adventure Gamebooks are designed for folks who love old-school fantasy gaming. We developed a streamlined system based on Old School Essentials and tailored to adventure gamebook play—which means you don't need any of the Old School Essentials source books to play.
We also made it a priority to design for what we love about old school TTRPGs: exploring the dungeon! This means we lean into mechanics like searching for traps and secret doors, listening before entering a room, dealing with locked or stuck doors, and running away from terrible monsters (or foolheartedly fighting them all, if that’s your path).
You will need to navigate your way through the Black Spire, making dire choices, dealing with enemies, interacting with non-player characters, and mapping your path! Each choice you make matters.
Voth Background and Art by Arik Roper
Vraxagons in the Corridor by Skinner
The Antechamber by Arik Roper
One of our favorite parts of old school play is trying to work out how to navigate the dungeon. The Black Spire Pact reveals one room at a time, so you will have to map the connections as you play. Each room has multiple entries, branching as you make your decisions. Entries will be arranged to avoid accidentally seeing things that could influence your decision-making.
Something we have enjoyed doing, but haven't done in quite a while, is offering community copies of our work. If you want to pay it forward, as they say, then here's a great chance to share something badass. And we aren't talking digital either. If you add on a community copy, Janaka will put a print copy of The Black Spire Pact in a Little Free Library in the Boston area, or Max will put a print copy in a Little Free Library in the Minneapolis area!
Little Free Libraries are a beautiful thing. Maybe one of the last bastions of humanity. So, if you want to share, here's a chance. And we'll cover most of the cost, knocking the price down to $15 USD for the add-on.
Just think of all the satanic influence you can have by helping to get someone into Old School Essentials! My old Baptist minister is probably turning in his grave just thinking about it!
ORIGINAL ARTWORK!
Are you feeling tired of yelling about how much you hate AI into the Metabyss? Want to know the best way to hate AI artwork? Buy a real human artwork from a real human artist. But hate isn't the only motivator for supporting artists; you could also buy an original artwork because you LOVE it.
As Arik and Skinner are creating absolutely stunning artwork, we are posting it here for sale as an add-on. This is a great opportunity to glorify your tomb or domicile with one-of-a-kind artwork by two absolute legends!
100% of proceeds from art sales go directly to the artist.
Note that any artwork will ship separately. Shipping expenses will be worked out in coordination with the artist after the campaign.
We have just one stretch goal objective: the more support this campaign gets, the more art we get to commission for the book! If we meet it once, we will add another.
UNLOCKED$16,666: More interior art from Skinner & Arik Roper!
We are planning to produce this book exactly how we want, but we could always use more artwork. If we can raise $16,666 on this project, then we will be able to afford more amazing art that will live eternally in damnation!
(LOCKED) $30,000: Even more interior art from Arik Roper & Skinner!
Yes, let's do it again. If we can reach $30,000, then we will be able to commission more, more, and even more art from this amazing duo that will be immortalized inside these damned tomes!
Two mad minds are clearly better than one. When you put Max Moon and Janaka Stucky in a dungeon together, all hell is sure to break loose. Max Moon is the game designer and lead writer behind The Black Spire Pact, supported by Janaka as the co-writer and editor. Together, they are the founders of Flaming Hand.
In the true spirit of Player Versus Player, we have brought two of our absolute favorite artists into the arena to duke it out with pen and brush! Both enter the psychedelic realm of hell, but from different doorways. The fabled Arik Roper, mythic master of fantasy, is up against the legendary Skinner, commander of chaos!
Be sure to keep an eye out for original drawings as add-ons! Here are a couple of examples to sink your teeth into!
A Damned Paladin in Hell by Arik Roper
Horned Devils in the Smoking Room by Skinner
As of today, the system is designed, all 34 dungeon rooms are written, and encounters are set up. The first level of the dungeon, the largest level, has all its branching entries written, and we have been playtesting. You can even watch Hunter and Ryan play it on The Weekly Scroll!
Arik and Skinner have their art briefs and are hard at work on the interior art. We expect to wrap up the first round of writing before this campaign ends, so we will have a full draft ready for more public playtesting.
Speaking of playtesting, we anticipate opening that up to the public as early June, and backers will be the first to hear the call!
Another great way to get word about playtesting, or to find a playtesting partner, is to join the Flaming Hand Discord Server.
Shipping estimates for this project are in the table below. As part of OSE month, we are joining the collaborative project fulfillment. This means that if you back the Demonic Grimoire, then The Black Spire Pact will ship with your Demonic Grimoire and any other projects you backed that are part of the fulfillment collab—for the same cost of shipping! But if you only back The Black Spire Pact the below shipping estimates are still valid.
SAVE BIG with DISCOUNTED GROUP SHIPPING! Thirteen of the seventeen projects in OSE Month are participating in group shipping with Demonic Grimoire. This means all rewards from these projects will be grouped and shipped together so that you can back multiple projects without paying a ton for shipping! For instance, if you're in the US and back the Demonic Grimoire Ritualist Pledge Level + 9 other projects, you are paying up to $29; saving you $124 vs. the approx $153 if you had backed each project individually.
Please note that the values in the table below are an estimate to the best of our knowledge at the time the campaign launched given the shipping fees and rates from our fulfillment warehouses. Please see the FAQ section for more information on shipping.
Old-School Essentials Month
Old-School Essentials Month is a group-collab project led by Exalted Funeral and Necrotic Gnome, featuring a new 176-page OSE book — the Demonic Grimoire — and sister projects from 16 other renowned creators in the OSE community.
The theme of OSE Month 2026 is: DEMONS! Get ready for hordes of new monsters, adventures set in the realms of hell, fiendish new character options, and lashings of blood-dripping art.
Group Achievements
We will be announcing a series of achievements tied to the success of all OSE Month projects jointly! To start with:
All projects funded: When all OSE Month projects fund, we will arrange a community Ask Me Anything session on Discord, featuring creators from across the projects. This will be a chance to chat with the OSE Month creators about their projects.
Old-School Essentials (OSE) is a role-playing game of fantastic adventure inspired by classic games of the 1970s and 1980s. Players delve into forsaken ruins, battle fearsome monsters, explore haunted forests and perilous mountain ranges, sail the high seas in search of lost lands, recover fabulous treasures, and unearth secrets of ancient magic.
